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Hampton Wick, London (1875)

The Mysterious Window Smashing.

We are pleased to be able to state that the mysterious window smashing, which has lately caused so much excitement in this village, was discontinued from last Saturday night till Thursday evening, when a stone was thrown which broke another square of plate glass at Mr Miles’s shop. In addition to the damage reported by us last week, we have to add that Mr  Miles had two more panes of plate glass and one in an upstairs window broken on Friday and Saturday evenings, making with that of Thursday, a total of nine, the damage altogether to this gentleman being estimated at about £9.

On Saturday evening the first stone was fired about 7 o’clock, when it was quite light. Mr Miles had shut up the window facing towards the post office (at which all the previous stones had been thrown) and thought himself secure. Not so, however, for the tactics were soon changed, and at the time stated a stone came with terrific force against the window facing Park-road, cutting a hole through a pane of glass about the size of a walnut. Mr Miles (the landlord of the house) was sitting at the counter talking to Mr Miles (his tenant) and was struck on the knee by a piece of glass. At 8.30 a second stone, aimed at the same window, fortunately struck the door-step and did no damage. Sergt. Wilkes, who was in the road at the time, had a very narrow escape, as the stone whizzed by his head a few feet off.

About half-past 10 two smaller stones were fired at the upstairs window facing towards the post office, the first of which broke a pane of glass. on Friday and Saturday mornings also last week, about 8 o’clock, two stones fell close to Mr Miles’s windows, but did no damage. The police have a number of the stones in their possession. The majority of them are round, and about the size of a two-shilling piece.

The excitement appears to be dying out, but the police have not relaxed their energies in trying to find out the perpetrators. Constables in plain clothes have been on duty every evening until a late hour both in the street and in secluded places; and although in several instances they have narrowly escaped being struck, nothing positive appears to be known as to the direction whence the stones came. Numerous theories have been propounded, but still the question – “Where do the stones come from?” remains unsolved. “I’ll lay any amount they come from —” remarks one. “Nothing of the sort,” is the reply “they come from somewhere in the street.” “They can’t be boys,” says another, “or they would have dropped it long ago” – an opinion generally concurred in by everybody.

“Do you think it done for a wager, or by some glaziers on ‘tramp’?” suggests a third. These are the kinds of queries and suggestions that one might have heard being discussed by groups of persons in passing through the village lately. as for the punishment that should be meted out to the guilty parties, opinion seems also very divided; and we shudder to think of what would be the fate of the individuals could some of the inhabitants but have their way. Of this we are positive – the magistrates would not be troubled with the case. We give the remark of one indignant inhabitant as an example: “If I could catch the rascals, do you know what I’d do with them? Why, I’d tar them, feather them, and throw them into the Thames; call themselves men, do they? I call them things, not men!”

Surrey Comet, 18th September 1875.

The Mysterious Window Smashing. An arrest made.

A singular turn has now been given to the extraordinary proceedings which have created so much excitement in the village during the past few weeks. On Friday night, the 17th inst., as we mentioned last week, Mr Miles, grocer, the principal sufferer by the depradations, had three more panes of glass broken. On Saturday night nine stones were thrown at his premises, breaking four more squares. On Monday night, the police, whose utmost vigilance had hitherto been baffled, arrested a lad under circumstances so strongly suspicious, that he has been remanded by a magistrate, bail being refused. The most extraordinary feature in the affair, is, that the accused is a shop-boy in the employ of Mr Miles, who, as we have already stated, is the principal sufferer by the stone-throwing, he having had no less than 15 panes of glass broken, 12 of which were plate.

On Tuesday morning, the accused – Frank Williams, 15, of 2, Park-road, was charged before H.D. Phillips, Esq., at his residence, the Maples, with wilfully breaking 15 panes of glass, value £12, the property of Mr George Miles, grocer, his employer, between Sept. 8 and Sept. 20.

Police-Sergeant Wilkes, 12T, said: Last night, about 10 minutes past 7, I was standing outside Mr Miles’s shop, within about two yards of the doorway, in company with Mr Charles Miles, when the prisoner came out of the shop with a basket on his left arm containing goods which he was going to deliver to customers. On stepping on to the footpath, he turned to the left and moved his right arm, as if in the act of throwing something. Immediately I heard a crash against the window, and prisoner put his basket down, ran into the shop and told his master, Mr Miles, that “another stone had been thrown.” I followed him in and accused him of throwing the stone and he denied it. I at once searched him.

Mr Phillips: Did you find any stones in his pocket? – Witness: No, Sir, not then. Mr Miles said he had some goods to be delivered at Hampton Court, and had no one else to send, so I let the prisoner go to Hampton Court, giving a constable instructions to follow him. When he came back I took him into custody. At the time the stone was thrown there was no one in the street but myself, Mr C. Miles, and a constable. The windows on the other side of the street were all closed, and the stone could not have come over the houses. After the prisoner was taken into custody no more stones were thrown that night.

Mr Phillips: Had there been any on the previous night? – Witness: No, sir. On Saturday night there were nine thrown; four fresh panes of glass were broken, two stones struck panes that had been broken before, and three others took no effect.

Mr Phillips: How is it that none were broken on Sunday? – Witness: The shutters were up, sir. Two were broken on Friday night. I shall get all the dates at sessions one which windows were broken. I may add that we have had detectives employed on duty for the last fortnight or more, but we have been unable to detest the persons causing the damage. I picked up the stone produced, which apparently rebounded from the window. The latter was not broken. It is similar to those by which windows have been broken before, but is smaller than the generality of them. (The stone produced was a smooth pebble about the size and shape of an acorn).

On searching him at the station witness found 9s. 8d. on him. In reply to Mr Phillips, prosecutor here said that he gave prisoner 7s a week. The money found on him belonged to the lad, who was going to put it into the savings’ bank.

Sergt. Wilkes continued: I also found a small pebble in prisoner’s pocket at the station. (The stone produced was about the size and shape of a button.). – Mr Phillips: Are these stones such as are found by the river. – Witness: Yes, sir. I also produced another pebble which was found by Mrs Miles in the boy’s shop basket. (It was a smooth stone about the size of a pigeon’s egg. It closely resembled several others which witness produced as having been picked up after windows had been broken previously).

– Prisoner, at the instigation of his father, who was present during the hearing, then asked the witness: Did you see the stone in my hand? – Witness: No, I did not. It was impossible to see what you had in your hand as it was dark at the time.

Mr Phillips observed that the stones seemed to have acquired a certain amount of smoothness and cleanness as if from having been carried in a person’s pocket. Police Constable Absalom Smith, 269T, who was in plain clothes near the spot at the time, corroborated the evidence of Sergt. Wilkes. – Prisoner: Did you see the stone come from my hand? – Witness: I don’t know what came from your hand. – Prisoner: I put the goods in my basket in the shop and had nothing in my hand. I did not put my hand in my pocket, or anything. I went out swinging my hand, and directly I got outside the stone came at the window. I did not know anything about it till I heard the crash. – Smith: When he stepped off the step he swung his arm round like lightning.

Williams, the father of the accused, said that it had been proved that stones came over the houses. P.S. Wilkes said it was impossible it could have been so in this case.

In reply to the magistrates, Mr Miles said that the boy had been in his service about 12 months, and he had found him steady and regular in his work. He had then no reason to suspect the prisoner until the previous morning when the pebble referred to by Sergt. Wilkes was found in his basket. He then stated that a dog belonging to witness brought it in in his mouth and put it in the basket. Witness had frequently seen the dog bring in all sorts of rubbish.

Mr Phillips observed that no damage had been proved to have been done by the prisoner.

Sergt. Wilkes asked Mr Miles if the police had not informed him that they had reason to suspect the prisoner. – Mr Miles: Yes. On Saturday night prisoner left my place between 11 and 12. As he went out of the side door there came a sound as if another of my windows had been smashed. On Sunday morning, on making an examination, it appeared to me to be a pane in  my parlour window that was broken previously. After the boy had gone Sergt. Wilkes and Inspector Steed came in and told me that from the suspicious way in which he acted they believed that the accused did it as he went out of the side door. – Sergt. Wilkes said it was about a quarter to 12 when the boy came out. He made the same peculiar gesture and ran in and siad: “There’s another window broken,” just the same as he did on the Monday night. Witness had had his suspicions previously aroused by a window being broken before as prisoner was putting up the shutters at 6 o’clock in the evening, there being apparently no one else near from whom the stone could come. – Prisoner said that on Saturday night he had his hands full of grocery. – Mr Miles said it was quite true that he had some grocery to take home.

Sergt. Wilkes said that further evidence would be brought against the prisoner at the Sessions, although, of course, they were not going to contend that he did all the damage. Inspector Steed – who was that day gone to Hammersmith to see the superintendent on the subject – would speak to what he had seen,

– Mr Phillips thought that as the case stood, it must fall through. Prisoner ought to have been charged with the attempt. The evidence as to that was most clear. – Sergt. Wilkes then asked that the charge might be altered so as to make it for the attempt; he added that he thought he should be able to prove that some of the glass had been broken from the inside.

– Prisoner’s father asked that the case might be dismissed. – Sergt. Wilkes replied that in that case he should apprehend the boy again on the amended charge. He added that the boy being in the employ of the prosecutor he had not had the surveillance upon him that others had. – Mr Phillips said it was quite clear that prisoner threw the stone against the glass, and if the police could establish reasonable suspicion of his having been concerned in the breaking, it became a very serious matter. – Sergt. Wilkes remarked on the fact that the window had been broken on two or three occasions, when persons were putting up the shutters, when it was impossible for the stone to have been thrown by anybody else without hitting the boy.

= After some remarks by Mr Miles upon the same coincidence, the charge was altered to one of “wilfully throwing a pebble against a plate glass window with intent to cause wilful damage, and also on suspicion of breaking 15 panes of glass, the property of his employer.” Upon this charge, prisoner was remanded to the petty sessions. Bail was refused it being remarked that it would then be seen whether stone-throwing was continued in his absence.

Inspector Steed, Sergt. Wilkes and three or four constables have continued on duty in the village during the week, but the stone-throwing has entirely ceased.

Surrey Comet, 25th September 1875.

The poor Spiritualists, who have already had so much to
suffer, have sustained another serious blow. A short time ago the
startling discovery was made that a resident of the spirit world was
giving public manifestations at Hampton Wick, his particular mission on
earth being to break windows. The Spiritualist newspaper took up
the matter with considerable earnestness, and published a special
article on “Stone-throwing spirits,” and local Spiritualists bestowed
considerable attention upon the destructive ghost. About a dozen
detectives were engaged to unravel the mystery, the value of property
destroyed making matters very serious, and their failure caused the
Spiritualists to be triumphant. But the “ghost” has now been found, and
he is discovered to be none other than an errand boy who has carried on
the sport with enough cleverness to escape previous detection. For one
month, at least, whilst the lad is in gaol, the people of Hampton Wick
will not be troubled by ghosts, and the believers in visitations from
the spirit world will have to look elsewhere for confirmation of their
theories.

Birmingham Mail, 28th September 1875.

A Ghost of the Period.

The capture and condemnation to a month’s imprisonment with hard labour of an errand boy named Frank Williams, aged fifteen, has, at last, we rejoice exceedingly to learn, set the village of  Hampton Wick free from the supposed supernatural terrors under which it has for some time back trembled. During the past three weeks or so between £30 and £40 worth of plate and other glass has been broken in Hampton Wick during the night-time. This has, of course, been a serious trouble to the good people of Hampton Wick; for Hampton Wick, though, in the opinion of its inhabitants, a charming place, is somewhat limited in size, and £30 or £40 is much more missed there than would be the case in London.

It was impossible for the people of Hampton Wick to take their walks abroad without seeing in the windows they passed the mark of the “beast” – as they in their rage denominated him  – by whom they were tormented. But the “beast” himself they never saw, and a “large body” of detectives whom they sent for, and stationed nightly in the streets, never saw him either. So they came to the conclusion that he must be a ghost; the place got the name of the “haunted village,” and the scourge from which it suffered was made the subject of an article upon “Stone-throwing Spirits” in a journal which is called the Spiritualist. That a ghost should throw stones did not seem upon first thought very probable. The records of ghostly history – we speak under the correction of the Spiritualist – supplied no instance of stone-throwing spirits. As a rule, it has been the practice of ghosts – as was, indeed, only natural in beings who had no need to take thought of the morrow – to do nothing but lounge about places with which they had been, usually unpleasantly, connected in their lifetime.

Sometimes a ghost would speak, but never unless he was first spoken to. His usual custom was just to show himself, and then disappear. Sometimes, in the streets of Rome, he would “squeak and jabber,” but, nine times out of ten, he held his tongue, for the somewhat Irish reason that he had no tongue to hold, being, as a general rule, made out of a turnip, a tallow-candle, and a white sheet. One very favourite practice of ghosts was to make a noise in some room adjoining that in which the person whom they wished to terrify happened to be. They would never show themselves to him, but would drag a chain about all night in some neighbouring apartment, or ring all the bells of the house at periodic intervals.

All these things have been done by ghosts at various times, and believed in by people more or less sensible. But that a ghost was capable of taking up a pebble and smashing a plate-glass window was what, until the other day, no one believed, for there was no precedent of a ghost having ever so misconducted himself [he did not read the article] . It was, therefore, not without difficulty that the people of Hampton Wick came at length to the conclusion that their windows were being broken by the agency of a malevolent Spirit, and that their village was “haunted.”

But what were they to think? The lynx eyes of the local police, and of eight metropolitan detectives, were unable to see to the bottom of the affair. The shrewdest villagers, famous for their reputation of seeing far into milestones, could make nothing of the pebbles, which came through the windows. No one was ever seen to throw them, no one was ever heard to run away after having thrown them. The thing was altogether inexplicable, except upon the thoery of Spiritual interference. For this theory much was to be said. The objection that window-breaking was a malicious thing to do was, of course, no objection. The objection that window-breaking was a silly thing to do was equally devoid of weight; for there is probably in the whole universe no being so unutterably silly as a Spirit, as anybody who chooses to go to a seance may discover, if he please.

What can be so silly as the gibberish which the Spirits rap out, in answer to those by whom they are consulted? What more ridiculous than the notion of a Spirit coming all the way from the other world to turn a table which a maid of all work could turn just as well, or relinquishing the music of the spheres to play a squeaking fiddle, in a stuffy back drawing-room? When we think of the nonsensical letters which the Spirits write; of their extreme fatuity in putting themselves about so to tell us things that everybody knows, or that nobody wants to know; when we observe in them a stupidity greater than that of a learned pig or a French poodle who have both been before this taught to spell two or three words without a mistake, and count up to 20 correctly; and when we further remember that the men whom the Spirits patronise, the “Mediums” whom they enrich, are generally persons in whom the rest of the world has no confidence, but for whom, on the contrary, it feels a most sincere and profound contempt, we are prepared to believe that there is no act of folly of which a Spirit might not be capable, no depth of ignorance or of idiocy into which a Spirit might not fall.

It was, therefore, not so very illogical after all for the people of Hampton Wick to come to the conclusion that, as no one else could be discovered brekaing their windows, it must be a Spirit that did the damage. If the mischief had been confined to one house only, it would probably have been put down to the cat; but it was impossible to believe that any cat could be so nefarious as to go about breaking the windows of a whole village.

At length, after a whole fortnight had been spent in midnight vigilance and nothing discovered, success rewarded the watchfulness of the police. The principal sufferer by the plague under which the village groaned was a Mr George Miles, a grocer. Of this worthy man’s plate-glass windows, fifteen panes had, between the 1st and the 20th September, been broken, in an endeavour, as it appeared, to sand the sugar – which it is his desire to sell pure and unadulterated – with pebbles from outside. On the evening of the last-mentioned date, Mr Miles’s own errand-boy was observed to come out of the shop with a basket on his arm, containing goods which he was going to deliver to customers; when he had got a little distance from the shop, his other arm was seen to move swiftly, and almost at the same instant one of the panes of plate-glass in his master’s window was heard to break. The boy then laid down his basket, and rushed into the shop to tell Mr Miles what Mr Miles knew full well – that “another stone had been thrown.”

The prisoner seems to have for some time taken great delight in bringing in to Mr Miles the stones which were thrown through the windows at various times, and one such stone, a “pebble about as big as a pigeon’s egg,” was found in the basket with which he was in the habit of taking round to customers the goods they had ordered. When asked about it he ingeniously accounted for its being in his basket by saying that the “dog must have put it there.” He has, as we have already said, been convicted and sent to gaol.

Awakened from its terrific, ghastly nightmare, Hampton Wick has now fallen again into that wholesome and dreamless sleep in which villagers in all parts of the world spend, as far as travellers can judge, the greater part of their time upon earth. The Hampton Wick Ghost has been shown to be an errand-boy – his motive, juvenile frolic or juvenile spite. We wish we could hope that the Spiritualists would learn wisdom from this exposure, and come round to the conclusion that the Spirits were not really responsible for the nonsense that is wrought and written in their names. If Spiritualists shall have been brought, by the capture of Frank Williams, to suspect that Spiritualism is a delusion and a sham, Hampton Wick will not have been a “haunted village” in vain.

Echo (London), 29th September 1875.

The Hampton Wick Ghost appears to be laid at last. Since the apprehension of the lad Williams – errand boy in the employ of Mr Miles, one of the principal sufferers – who on Monday last was sentenced to one month’s hard labour, the stone-throwing has entirely ceased. The evidence as to the lad having thrown at least one stone was as clear as it possibly could be, and the circumstance we have just mentioned is, as Sir John Gibbons pointed out, a very extraordinary coincidence, to say the least. The theory of the defendant’s counsel that the window breaking was done with catapults from the Park is hardly feasible, as catapults, we believe, do not possess the boomerangic properties of shooting round corners, even if they are constructed of sufficient power to carry a distance of 200 yards or more. The ingenious manner in which Master Williams rushed into the shop after executing his little stone-throwing feat, to inform his master – “There’s another gone, Sir,” could hardly have been surpassed by Theodore Hook himself, the facile princeps in practical joking. Master Williams, however, will find his present situation to be anything but a joke, and it is to be hoped that the lesson will not be lost upon him. Meanwhile the spiritualists have been deprived of what promised to be a fine argument in favour of their favourite theories. Spirits have certainly been accused of quite as objectless amusements, and window breaking would have been rather a relief than otherwise from the monotony of table-tipping and whisker-pulling with which they have hitherto favoured us.

Surrey Comet, 2nd October 1875.


Peckham folks will read with interest of the ghost at Hampton Wick, the stone-throwing ghost, which ultimately turned out to be a grocer’s errand-boy. This young deliquent who has broken between thirty and forty pounds worth of glass, and honoured with an article in a spiritualist paper as one of the “Stone-throwing Spirits,” is now paying the penalty of his misdeeds, and will certainly not meet with much sympathy from anybody. But what a curious mania this destructive stone-throwing is!

Long before the Peckham miscreant made his appearance and disappearance, there was familiar to me the case of a man holding a confidential post in a respectable office, who suddenly yielded to temptation to indulge in freaks of this kind, enjoying in some morbid fashion the consternation it created, and assisting in throwing th epolice detectives off the scent. After breaking innumerable windows, and doing mischief to a serious amount, he ended by attempting to set fire to the office, at a time when to do so would have been to sacrifice the lives of a large number of persons in it. The propensity was, of course, in the nature of monomania.

South London Press, 2nd October 1875.

Capture of a ghost.

Hamptonwick
has for some time been placed in a state of considerable alarm owing to
a series of attacks made with stones and other missiles upon the
windows of the inhabitants, doing damage, it is said, to the amount of
between £30 and £40, and defying the vigilance of a number of detective
police-officers on duty nightly for nearly a fortnight. However, on
Thursday night last, they succeeded in capturing an errand-boy named
Frank Williams, aged 15, employed by one of the principal sufferers, in
the act of throwing a pebble at his master’s window.

He was at
once taken before a local magistrate and remanded for a full bench, bail
being refused. Before the Sunbury Petty Sessions on Monday, Sir John
Gibbons, Bart., in the chair, the lad was charged with wilfully throwing
a pebble against a plate glass window, and causing damage thereto of
the value of £1, on th e29th of September; also on suspicion of breaking
fifteen plates of glass in the shop-window of Mr Miles, grocer, his
property value e£12, between September 18th and 20th, at Park-road,
Hamptonwick – Mr Haynes, of Wandsworth, attended for the prosecution;
and Mr Marratt, of Windsor, defended the prisoner; whilst Messrs.
Buckland and Bushel, of Kingston-on-Thames, attended to watch the case
in the interest of other sufferers by the damage who reside in the
stone-throwing locality, which, through the mysterious occurrence, has
been dubbed by some the “haunted village,” and by others the
“dilapidated village,” and commented upon at some length under the
heading of “Stone throwing Spirits” in the “Spiritualist” of the 18th
inst.

Police-sergeant Wilkes, 12T, said that on Tuesday night
last, about ten minutes to seven o’clock, he was in plain clothes,
standing outside Mr Miles’s shop, within about two yards of the
door-way, in company with Mr Charles Miles, when the prisoner came out
of the shop with a basket on his left arm containing goods which he was
going to deliver to customers. On stepping on to the footpath, he turned
to the left, and moved his right arm sharply as in the act of throwing
something. Immediately he heard a crash against the window. The prisoner
put his basket on the pavement, ran into the shop, and told his master
(Mr Miles) that another stone had been thrown. Witness followed him in,
and accused him of throwing the stone. He denied it, but witness at once
searched him, but did not find any stones. Prisoner then went to
Hampton Court to deliver the goods and a constable was directed to
follow him. When he came back he was taken into custody.

At the
time the stone was thrown there was no one in the street but the
witness, Mr C. Miles, and Police Constable Smith but there were five
other constables in plain clothes keeping watch from adjoining streets.
Witness here produced three stones, one of which he picked up on its
rebounding from the window, one which he found on the prisoner at the
police-station, and another given him by Mrs Miles which was found in
the prisoner’s basket. In reply to the Bench, witness added, since the
1st September up to the 20th inst., glass had been broken lightly, and
seven or eight detectives had been on duty every night, but were unable
to detect any one causing the damage till the 20th, since which no
windows had been broken.

Besides the damage done at prosecuter’s
house windows had been broken at Mr Christy’s, baker; Mr Wood’s,
green-grocer; Mr Towell’s, ironmonger; Mr Farance’s, fishmonger; and Mr
Dale’s, leather-seller – all of the High-street, Hampton wick. The
prosecutor deposed to the prisoner being in his employ up to the 20th
inst. as shopboy, and said that between the 1st September and that date
he had had fifteen squares of glass broken. Witness produced about a
dozen pebbles, some as large as pigeon’s eggs, which he had picked up in
the shop, while others had been brought to him by prisoner, who said he
had picked them up when thrown.

Mr Charles Miles, a member of
the  Hampton-wick Local Board, but no relation of the prosecutor, and
Police-constable Smith, 269T, gave corroborative evidence as to the
stone-throwing; and Mrs Miles, wife of the prosecutor, deposed to
finding a stone in the shop basket used by the prisoner, who said, on
being asked how it came there, that the dog put it in. The Justices,
after a consultation, considered the case proved, and sentenced the
prisoner to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.

Kilkenny Moderator, 13th October 1875.

Petty Sessions. – Monday. (Before Sir John Gibbons, Bart., chairman; H.D. Phillips and W.A. Mitchison, Esqrs.)

The Hampton Wick “Mystery.” – Before the arrival of the chairman, Mr Marratt, addressing the two magistrates on the Bench, asked if any official intelligence had been received respecting the boy Williams who was sent to prison for the stone-throwing at Hampton Wick.  – The Clerk: I have enquired and find that the boy was not released on Saturday night. – Mr Phillips: Perhaps you yourself have some information, Mr Marratt? – Mr Marratt: No, sir, if I had I should not take the liberty of asking the magistrates. I only asked in the public interest. – Mr Phillips (humorously): I should think the public interest is the boy’s detention. – The subject then dropped.

Surrey Comet, 16th October, 1875.

The “mysterious” stone-throwing.

The following letter which had
been received by the magistrates from the Home Office with reference to
the memorial on behalf of the boy Williams convicted for stone-throwing
at  Hampton Wick, was handed to our reporter at the Sunbury Petty Sessions on Monday: –

“Whitehall, Oct. 11, 1875. Gentlemen, – I am directed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department to thank you for your report in the case of Frank Williams, and to acquaint you that under all the circumstances he has declined to interfere. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient Servant, Henry Selwin Ibbetson. The magistrates sitting in Petty Sessions for the division of Spelthorne, Sunbury.”

Surrey Comet, 23rd October 1875.